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I like to turn coincidence into convergence whenever possible. This weekend, a user of [cdcfluview](http://github.com/hrbrmstr/cdcfluview) had a question that caused me to notice a difference in behaviour between the package was interacting with CDC FluView API, so I updated the package to accommodate the change and the user.

Around the same time, @recology_ tweeted:

Finally, the [2015-2016 flu season](http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2015-2016.htm) is also fast approaching (so a three-fer!), making a CRAN leap for `cdcfluview` quite timely.

Since I can’t let @quonimous have all the `#rstats` fun & glory, I added a function and two data sets to `cdcfluview`, did the CRAN dance and it’s now [on CRAN](https://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/cdcfluview/). I also did the github dance to have it’s entry in the [Web Technologies Task View](https://cran.rstudio.com/web/views/WebTechnologies.html) updated.

The new function lets you grab the XML behind the high-level [Weekly US Map: Influenza Summary Update](http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm) (I’ll be adding a function to make a similar plot that won’t require gosh-awful Flash) and the data sets provide metadata about the composition of HHS regions and Census regions, making it easier to compose factors, add labels to maps or even segment maps/combine polygons. The existing two grab current & historical detailed national & state influenza data.

There’s an example on github and in the

(https://rud.is/b/2015/01/10/new-r-package-cdcfluview-retrieve-flu-data-from-cdcs-fluview-portal/).

If you have any other data you need freed from the confines of the CDC FluView Flash portal, please file an issue & paste a screen shot (if you are comfortable with most browser Developer Tools views, even a dump of the request or “as cURL” URL would be awesome).

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